Ex-Kos-mmunicated
A Daily Kos'er named Eric Allen Bell started a film on a mosque being built in Tennessee, and toed the Kos party line on Islam for quite some time...that it's Islamophobia to criticize it and all that...and then, he started doing some research and changed his tune, and...oh how he was unwelcomed back in Kos-land.
From FrontPage Magazine, Bell writes about what happened when he wrote, based on his research, that "beliefs of Islam were in direct conflict with human rights, gay rights, women's rights and basic Democratic Values":
I could not believe the cartoonish way in which those who opposed the mosque were making their case. I felt like I was on the right side of this thing - absolutely certain. But in fact, I was wrong.But something kept nagging at me on a gut level. Something about all of this didn't quite feel right. The Arab Spring, which I supported, started to degenerate into the Islamist Winter, and I grew more and more concerned. I flew back to Nashville to shoot a conference on whether or not Islam was conducive with Democratic Values and on the way to my hotel room I learned that my cab driver was from Egypt. I asked him how he felt about the fall of Mubarak, a dictator worth over $70 billion dollars while so much of his country was living in poverty and he told me he was concerned. Concerned? Wasn't this good news? The cab driver was a Coptic Christian and he told me that he feared for his family back home. "If the Muslims take control, and they will, it will be very dangerous for my parents and my sisters. I'm scared for them right now". After that conversation, I started to pay more attention to the news coming from the Islamic world in the Middle East.
Over the coming months I watched as the Muslim Brotherhood gained political power in Egypt. I saw that cab driver's worst fears come true as Coptic Christians were attacked by Islamic mobs. I saw Tunisia institute Sharia, the brutal Islamic Law. After Libya fell, the Transitional Council also instituted Islamic Law. The nuclear armed Islamic government of Pakistan arrested and punished those who cooperated with the United States in killing Osama Bin Laden. A woman under the Islamic government of Afghanistan faced execution for the crime of being raped. Similar news stories emerged from Iran. A man who typed "there is no god" as his Facebook status in Indonesia, the largest Islamic country in the world, was arrested for blasphemy.
Several Muslim men in England were arrested for handing out leaflets to Londoners demanding that homosexuals be executed by hanging for violating Islamic Law with their lifestyle.
And it struck me. Even though these angry townspeople in Mufreesboro, TN had not articulated their concerns very well, they were only half wrong.
...It was at this time that I went to my backers and told them that we were not making an honest documentary. I felt that everything I had put into the 25 minute short version (the one I used to raise the completion funds) was true, but only half true. It was critical that we also show the very real threats that exist within Islam. We needed to show that what is happening to these small communities of peaceful Muslims in America are the exception to the rule. I wanted to show what happens to countries when they gain a Muslim majority, how women are treated, that homosexuals were executed, that free speech did not exist, that the forced Islamic Law was not consistent with Democratic Values - anything and everything I could think of that ought to strike a chord with the Liberal mindset. And the response I received was, "Eric you are starting to sound like an Islamophobe. We don't want to make a movie that promotes fear. Let's just stick with the existing plan, okay?"
I fought and I fought. I showed them a book called "The Truth About Mohammed" but was struck down since the author was a man named Robert Spencer and my backers pointed out that the Southern Poverty Law Center named his "Jihad Watch" site as part of a hate group. I asked them to watch a documentary called "Islam: What the West Needs to Know" and pointed out that I had researched independently and verified the truth of what was being presented there, but they would not even watch this documentary as they were sure in advance that it was "hate speech" and "propaganda designed to spread fear". It probably goes without saying that by now I was very frustrated. I showed my new backers several verses from the Koran that call for the killing of infidels and was told that these verses were probably being taken out of context. I showed them a video clip from MEMRI TV of a young Egyptian child reciting a Hadith that calls for the killing of Jews and was told that "you can't trust MEMRI because they have an agenda".
I mentioned the popular Islamophobia watchdog site "Loonwatch" and how I had noticed a pattern of deflection all criticisms of radical and violent Islam by calling anyone who publicly raises these concerns a "Loon" and how I felt this was an intentional effort to provide a smoke screen for the terrorists. I also noted that everything Loonwatch said was in lockstep with the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and now CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation - the largest Islamic charity at one time, which was found to be funneling monies to Islamic terrorist organizations. I also noted that CAIR had ties to both Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and that Al Qeada had come out of the Muslim Brotherhood. I expressed my concerns that the Egyptian Imam of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro might have ties to the MB, something I had failed to properly investigate. But since CAIR had the support of Glenn Greenwald and Amy Goodman's show, Democracy Now, I was told that I had my facts all wrong. It was also pointed out to me that if CAIR was allegedly some kind of terrorist front then why do they still have a special tax status and why are they still around? When I said I do not know but it was possible that the government might prefer to watch them out in the open rather than risk them going underground I was told that my judgment was sounding less and less clear and that maybe I needed to take a step back from the project for a while.
...Where do I stand on Islam? Let's look at its founder - a man who raped a 9 year old girl, a slave owner, a leader who ordered people to be tortured, for adulterers to be stoned, for countless nonbelievers to be beheaded, a killer, a warmonger who spread his "religion of peace" by the sword, a man who suffered from hallucinations of voices telling him to do violent things, a tyrant, a homicidal maniac perhaps the equivalent of 100,000 Osama Bin Ladens. And this sadistic lunatic is considered to be the "ideal man" in Islam. What more needs to be said about Islam than that?
Do not forget that not all religion is found in organizations.
Lots of people have ironclad beliefs which are not based on anything evidential whatsoever - AND they are not part of a "religious orginaization's" belief system.
One of these is that you never have to fight for what is right. Another is that someone else's opinion is equally valid, sans testing.
Radwaste at February 22, 2012 2:46 AM
A lot of people are basically cowards who don't want to know the truth.
Islam is right up there with the KKK - a bigoted philosophy of which I want no part. Anyone is allowed to have on opinion with which I disagree. I treat them accordingly.
MarkD at February 22, 2012 4:45 AM
Well there ya go. Leftism and Islam are both totalitarian belief systems which book no questioning.
Cousin Dave at February 22, 2012 6:57 PM
The reactions and denials this guy received from his fellow leftists is exactly why I'm not going to lift a finger when the radical Muslims come calling for them.
We tried to warn them and were met with nothing but ridicule and name calling. Fine then. You deserve what's coming.
jimg at February 22, 2012 11:55 PM
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